Lead
by Andrea Weiling
Summary: *gasps in shock* Am I the first one to write a Kaga story? COMPLETELY AU, talks about Kaga as a juvenile deliquent who has to spend one year of isolation on the remote islands off of northern Hokkaido.
1. I'm Not Afraid

Ch.1: I'm Not Afraid  
  
The handcuffs dug into his skin with each dip that the boat gave. He had heard from one of the people behind him - he couldn't remember which was which at the moment - that the waves had been strangely choppy since two days ago, so they had been careful to take two extra lifejackets just in case. He didn't trust either of them, of course, he'd be a complete and utter fool if he did that, but they were all that he had right now, so he had to listen. The first one was some Ainu from one of the islands off of Hokkaido - Touya, he thought the name was - and the other was just some researcher by the name of Shindou. Neither were speaking to each other, nor were they speaking to him; Touya simply stared at him, almost as if he were some simple-minded stupid (which in his own lucid mind he'd like to believe) while Shindou operated the skiff. It was cold, especially because it was already autumn in Japan, and they were so far up north that it was any day now that it'd start snowing. He didn't shiver, though. He'd learned not to submit to trivial little things like that.  
  
Suddenly Touya spoke. He was young by comparison to most of those psycho-freaks (as he liked to call the snotty old prison counselors), but twice as serious. He swore those other old people had just been trying to figure out how to get into his head; Touya was just scary. He had stared at him from the mainland all the way to here, not doing anything else but sit and blink once a while. It made him feel discomfited, being under surveillance for so long. Shindou was different, he could tell - he was more likely to be the type to be sympathetic to his cause. Of course, he hadn't seen the young researcher again since yesterday, but already he'd started to scorn him like he had before. The researcher didn't seem twenty- two - he seemed more like a hyperactive twelve-year-old. He wondered how two desperately different people could remain in the same boat at the same time without the boat spasmodically cracking through the middle or something. From what he had seen so far, the two surprisingly got on well for two opposites.  
  
"Take off your clothes", Touya said tonelessly. After he gaped at the native Ainu for a few moments, the dark-haired counselor just simply repeated his request. Promptly the charge got the point and took off his shirt. "Turn it inside out and then put it back on." Kaga looked at the counselor strangely, but Touya explained. "It's a sign of dishonor here. Put it on", he stressed when Kaga continued to look disbelievingly at him. After a moment of indecision, he put it back on, smirking. Certainly, it was all in the mind for this one - HE didn't believe that it was dishonorable or degrading or anything like that, he just thought it was stupid. He didn't care, even if half the little town's population where they had rented the skiff had been watching him turn his underwear inside out, then put it on.  
  
Everyone thought he was sorry for what he'd done - quite the opposite, in fact, especially in his own opinion. He just happened to be a baby-faced teenager who was pretending to be sorry for getting in trouble for half his life. This was just another time - he'd pull the same trick again and he'd pull out of it again. They just thought that he'd go for this plan with a little more heart or whatever, and he'd spend a year there. Far from the truth, of course - the jail sentence was almost actually serious this time, if judges were ever serious about condemning him to juvenile hall - but he'd been given the choice whether to spend five years or go to an island for a year. Naturally he'd chosen the other way out. It didn't sound as serious as jail time, at least. He'd just be in for a year and then back out.  
  
Turning around so they couldn't see him smirk, he faced the wind and made as if he meant to spit into the waves, knowing that the wind would aim behind him. It hit Touya squarely on the side of his cheek. The Ainu simply picked up a rag from the skiff bottom and dried his face with it, then continued to stare. Kaga feigned surprise, then turned towards the humorless waves again. What was that guy's problem anyway? It was as if he was completely fearless or something. That infuriated him, somehow, swelled him with anger like wind swelled galleon sails - how could anyone stand up to him like that? How could anyone DARE to stand up to him at all?  
  
He'd robbed a store downtown at night, eleven o'clock or so, completely trashing the place after he'd looted all that needed to be looted. Someone had seen, of course, especially when the sign outside said that the store was only open until eight. He'd rubbed that kid's face into the pavement the next day at school when the unfortunate had told the police about it. He'd had to cut Art, his favorite class (because he didn't need to do anything in it to get a good grade) to escape the police that were looking for him. He had followed the kid home and then just beat him up on the street, in front of everybody. Of course, that was how the police caught him - someone had called the police station to say that someone was getting assaulted, and he was arrested. But he hadn't been able to resist that one last smirk before they dragged him off, spitting straight into the boy's face as he struggled to get up from the beating he'd received, and taunted "You're worthless". Just the tortured look on the boy's face before he'd been forced to turn away left him with a smirk of satisfaction.  
  
They were just fakes, all of them. The people at the anger management center, the counselors, the therapy sessions - they didn't really care at all what happened to him. He'd been tossed like a marathon baton from one to the other in a matter of months, one never staying for long. Each time he'd gotten into legal trouble, he'd always been warned "This is your last chance". He snorted at that every time he heard it - whatever happened, he would always be able to count on that "one last chance".  
  
Like hell he was going to spend one year trapped like some animal on a remote island. The game would end once they put him on shore and left him - he'd find a way out - no way he was going to spend a year like pretty human game for bears to eat or something on a remote island off of Hokkaido.  
  
The police had put him in a detention center until he could be tried. There were gray walls, gray sheets and blankets, and a light that was more gray than yellow. The entire room smelled like Windex. It was a jail room, of course, even though they called it a detention room - detention rooms never had locks on them. He'd gotten time at a certain part of the day to get out, stretch, watch TV, or hang out with the other detainees. To his disappointment, the other were all pimply wimps - just like Kimihiro Tsutui, the boy he'd beaten up for tattling on him. There was schoolwork, of course, he did as little as possible on that aspect and contented with wondering how long Kimihiro would have to remain in the hospital because of his injuries.  
  
What riled him most was his parents, though. They'd always managed to come running for a lawyer, offering to pay damage fees and demanding his release from detention - they had enough money and connections, at the very least, and a reputation to protect from the rest of the world. But that was in the past, before they'd divorced, and this time he hadn't been freed because of his past record and the severity of his attack on Kimihiro - this time, he'd be moved to an adult court or something like that. If the high-starched lawyer Ogata that was hired didn't get him out of the mess, he would be sent to prison. Of course, he knew that his parents were to blame: his mom, the perfect image of a bubble-headed Barbie doll, and his dad, the drinker who probably didn't even know his own name because he was inebriated so often. Everything was always Kaga's fault in the house - why wasn't the garbage cleaned out, why wasn't the lawn mowed, why wasn't his room clean. At times, his father had even asked him, "Why are you even alive?"  
  
He pretended to ignore them, preferring to sit on the bed and read the newspaper instead of talking to them. What was there to talk about, after all? Because of the divorce, they had even stopped visiting together; when his mom visited, she would just watch him, and when his dad visited, the bullheaded alcohol consumer would get so mad that he would turn red from not being able to touch him from all of the guards watching.  
  
The only person he'd seen almost daily at the detention center was Shindou Hikaru, a researcher who didn't seem to have anything else to do but come and see potentially violent kids sit dully in front of a TV. On one of the visits, he had suggested the program he was in now that was sending him to Hokkaido, the Round Square. The name, from what he'd heard, was something about making squares round so they would love and feel again. Crap, in his opinion, but he went along with it - he'd protested a little when he'd heard the entire thing was sponsored by Ainu, who weren't even Japanese, by his opinion. "Round Square tries to heal, not punish you for what you've done. For example, if you killed my cat, they might ask you to help me pick out a new cat, or go to the zoo to appreciate animals and life more, or volunteer to make birdcages as payment for something you destroyed. It's about healing, not punishment, you see."  
  
"Would it get me out of jail?", he remembered asking Shindou.  
  
"It's not about getting out jail", the researcher had replied. "If you go to jail angry, you'll stay angry in there, you see? But if you go with love into the Round Square, then you'll come back with love. It's more self-will and self-motivation than someone else pushing you to stay in a cell for the rest of your life - even though your jail sentence is usually shortened on account of the Round Square."  
  
That did it, of course. He'd accepted, Shindou had brought the application, and that was the end of that. Certainly, the world was full of idiots and fools - but he didn't think that there'd be anyone THAT stupid - Shindou was definitely at the top of that particular list today. The skiff had been filled with boxes crammed with stuff he'd need for survival: blankets, an ax, canned foods, bedrolls. There was even schoolwork for him to complete - fat chance he'd even touch that. Touya had built a one-room cabin on the island days before, describing it as "enough for a delinquent". His hands had grown tight in fists at THAT particular insult, and he'd twisted his cuffs against his wrists so hard they'd bled. But he wasn't afraid of the pain. He wasn't afraid or anyone or anything that he might face on his detainment on the island. It'd all be over once Shindou and Touya had left and he could escape - he'd been forced to plead guilty and ask the Round to help change his life. He hadn't relished the aspect, especially when Shindou looked at him critically when he had threatened to kill the researcher if he was lying. "You think that if I fear you, you can trust me? You have a lot to learn, Tetsuo." He'd prove to that upstart researcher that he was NOBODY'S fool!  
  
The motor slowed, and Shindou pulled them into a shady outlet. The shelter was among the trees, covered with black tar paper among the green- and-black haze of trees and the eerie fog that drifted between the spirals of trees like so many ghosts. He spat into the waves again - they thought he was going to spend a year here? Surely they were joking.  
  
When they were done unpacking, they led Kaga up the hill to the shelter where all the cardboard boxes were neatly stacked by the door. Touya turned to him and said quite plainly, "This land can provide for you or kill you. Winters are long, gather as much dry wood as you can or you'll freeze. The wet will kill you faster than the hunger."  
  
"I'm not afraid of dying", Kaga said sagaciously, but he stopped in mid-laugh when Touya's eyes gleamed in the upcoming darkness. Somehow, a shiver of fear ran through him almost furtively, as if he wasn't meant to sense it. It knocked his confidence off balance for a moment, but then his smirk returned.  
  
"The stream over there is the only fresh water source", Touya pointed and he could see the faint sliver of silver run through the trees.  
  
"Why didn't you put the house right up close to it? Then I wouldn't have to walk so far."  
  
For the first time, Touya smiled - but it was cold, almost icy. "How would you feel if a bear made its den beside the stream, right near your own house? Other animals come here for water too."  
  
Kaga shrugged. "I'd kill it."  
  
Touya nodded. "That's how the bear would feel too. You're not the only one who needs to survive on this island - you're part of a larger form of life here. Learn your place here."  
  
He smirked his trademark smirk. "What do you mean, learn? What in the world could be worth learning here?"  
  
"Honesty, for one", Touya said with a glare that pinned him. "Gentleness another. While you're at it, try your hand at patience as well." He unlocked the handcuffs, saying, "Don't eat anything you don't recognize - there's a book that shows you what's safe to eat that in one of the boxes". He retreated to the boat and sat there, a gleam of dark figure against the stark white of the boat, and watched him like he had before. Kaga dismissed everything as a fancy, especially when Touya didn't seem to blink when he saw in that position.  
  
"For you!", Shindou happily bounced as he handed Kaga a brightly colored bundle. Vaguely, Kaga could make out that it was some sort of Ainu thing, with animal heads sewn in different colors - something handmade, which would probably sell for a whole lot back home. He stared at the twenty-two year old researcher and immediately decided that he was probably more hyper than most of the cheerleaders at his school. His mind wandered a bit when Shindou started to explain that the bundle was some kind of friendship blanket that people give to each other when they want to trust each other and whatnot. The entire charade was getting annoying - he was tempted to scream, "Get the hell of the island already!", but refrained from doing so because he'd probably have to go through the regular justice system and spend five years in jail if he did that. After a little while of touchy-feely with Shindou gingerly patting him on the shoulder (frankly, he HATED being touched), the proverbial five-year-old gave one last bounce and then jaunted to the skiff. He watched it disappear from sight, leaving a wide V in its wake. He spat into the water, as if he wanted to defile the water so that it would dump them out of the boat or something.  
  
He stormed back to the shelter. They were glad now, weren't they? Everyone was happy now. They wouldn't have to see his baby-face for another year. The anger welled up in him like tears - how dare they give him these trashy boxes? They were just pretending to help him. Well, he wasn't going to play their game, walk their talk - he'd rather die than follow them. The rage blurred his eyes, but somehow he felt he saw all the more clearly when he was angry. He threw the whatever blanket into the doorway of the shelter and took the gas that was supposed to be for the lantern and splashed it over the boxes and the walls of the shelter. Digging again through the boxes, he found a box of matches. The smell of the gasoline made his nostrils flare. His head swam with the heady feel of anger.  
  
He kept tight grip on the matches. This would end now. He'd escape the island and he'd never have to see their faces ever again, pretending to sympathize, pretending to be his friend - he was sick of it! He'd never follow them, not on his life. Ripping the match against the sandpaper, it burst into flame. Without hesitation, he threw it into the boxes and watched the entire shelter become hell in ten seconds. The orange hands spread quickly, reaching sky-high, and he found himself swallowing the bitter residue that was left in his mouth. It was all gone now. He was truly alone, now. And with that thought, he raised his head back and began to laugh. It grew louder and louder, until he couldn't tell which was laughing, and which was the fire or which was tears.  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
That took me a LOOONG time to write. Oh well, first chapter over. Ikuzo! Onto the second chapter! *marches around like a soldier*  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	2. Cake

Ch.2: Cake  
  
The twenty-two-year-old came around the doorway, wearing a large T- shirt with the letter five on it and a pair of jeans. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning either - in fact, he looked a little smug. Immediately that stung him - how could Shindou be smug at a time like this? He was still waiting for the Round Justice's verdict whether to put him through regular justice or throw him on an island for a year, and here Shindou was looking smug? The researcher even hummed to himself as he made himself at home, brushing some of the old newspapers into the corner and pulling up a chair beside the working desk where Kaga did his homework. On went the coat on the peg by the door, the car keys jingling in the pocket (reminding him of just how little freedom he had in the detention center), and then Shindou sat down with a paper bag. Kaga chose to ignore him for the moment, reading the ads section of the newspaper and trying to find out if anyone had the bike he had wanted before he'd been detained. He caught the researcher looking a little lost for a moment, and he smirked.  
  
"Why don't you like your life?", the twenty-two year old asked finally.  
  
Kaga snorted. Wasn't it obvious? "Everything", he said without taking his eyes from the paper. "What else?"  
  
"Well, this person's a dense person. Care for some specifics?"  
  
Now he put the newspaper down and turned to the researcher. He lounged on the hard cot as if it were actually comfortable, but actually he was tensed, so burningly uptight that he could feel his muscles jerk this way and that. He struggled to keep his voice relaxed as he spoke, but it was hard. "Well, I tried out for the swim team last year." Shindou nodded at the statement. Kaga picked the paper back up, trying to keep his voice level. He couldn't quite succeed - he knew that the researcher could see that he was nervous at the question. For a moment, he felt as if he couldn't swallow anything, his throat had something in it that blocked the air passage and he couldn't breathe - and then the moment passed. He swore lightly under his breath and threw the paper to the side again. "I had to beg my parents to come and watch me."  
  
"Why did you have to beg them?"  
  
He glared at the researcher. "They're divorced, stupid. They won't get twenty feet radius of each other if at all possible. They don't give a shit about me." He looked away from the researcher, as if he were afraid to look now that he was going to pour his entire heart out to this pretender. "The swim team thing? They just pushed it aside. Finally when they went, I lost, and my dad made it sound like I lost on purpose or something." He scowled darkly, trying to will the tears away. It wouldn't do if he bawled in front of Shindou.  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
"They drink and they hate me. I'm not good enough to live in their eyes. Two things wrong with me, you know", he turned back to the researcher, squared his shoulders in an attempt to look like it didn't matter, and poked a finger at his temple, "what I do and what I say. They're not gonna be happy till I'm dead."  
  
A pause. "There's something else, isn't there?"  
  
Kaga looked away and picked up the paper again. "No."  
  
Another pause, and then Shindou smiled a knowing smile. "I know you're lying."  
  
He threw the paper down again, this time towards the researcher, who was smiling almost triumphantly now. "Fuck it! Why can't I get a moment's peace or something? You wanna know?" He stormed over to the twenty-two year old and threw a haphazard punch towards the researcher's face. Shindou caught it easily, but Kaga drew back immediately as if he'd been burned. "Do you know? You don't know what it feels like", he screamed as he vainly tried to hit the researcher, "you don't know what it feels like to be hit again and again until you don't feel anything, nothing at all!"  
  
Suddenly Shindou caught his fist and pulled his entire body into an embrace. Kaga hit the researcher across his cheek as hard as he could, retreating to the back of the cell near the bed, breathing hard. "Don't touch me!", he screamed. "Don't you DARE touch me! You're just like the rest of them, you just want me to go away and die! Dig a hole and bury me then, you son of a bitch!"  
  
Shindou smiled, a gesture that seemed completely out of place. "Your dad, I suppose?"  
  
"Hell yes! He drinks till he's sick! Mom just pretends nothing's happened." He breathed hard, trying to get his anger under control. "You don't understand ANYTHING."  
  
The researcher smiled. "Actually, I do. But that's beside the point." He opened the brown bag and took out an assortment of groceries - salt, flour, eggs, water - but Kaga couldn't figure out what the world they were for. Watching Shindou gave him time to calm down a little. When Shindou seemed to be done and had put the brown bag by the chair, the twenty-two year old was smiling. Kaga eyed him warily, then took the other chair available, his eyes never leaving that smiling face. "I want you to taste everything on this table", the researcher said.  
  
Kaga eyed the materials with distaste. "Raw?"  
  
"Yes. Don't tell me you're afraid of a little bad taste, are you?"  
  
He snorted derisively. "I'm not afraid of anything." One by one he sampled the ingredients - first the butter, which he ate all of it, purposefully taking big mouthfuls of it to show that he wasn't afraid to eat it. Next came the flour, which he ate a handful along with the sugar. When it came to the eggs, he tilted his head back and cracked all of them directly into his mouth. He took the thick molasses and drank that down as well. He shook the salt shaker straight into his mouth and washed everything down with the water. He did not take his eyes from the researcher, whose face seemed unmoved throughout the entire episode.  
  
"How did everything taste?"  
  
"Disgusting, of course. Why would it taste anything different?"  
  
"Then taste this one last item." Shindou reached down, brought up the paper bag, and placed it on the table. Reach in, he brought out a small cake, enough to feed two at a sitting, and placed it on front of him. Looking at it, Kaga wasted no time and broke off a piece of it. The icing was cool in his mouth - he didn't stop until the cake was completely gone.  
  
"And how did that taste?", Shindou asked when he was finished.  
  
"Good, I guess."  
  
"But didn't I make it with the exact same ingredients?"  
  
Kaga scoffed at him. "You didn't mix the ingredients, stupid. Of course it'd taste good with the same ingredients, but you have to bake it to a certain texture or a certain amount of time."  
  
"Bake it? How do you know how much time you need?"  
  
He rolled his eyes and went back to the bed. "You look on the recipe book or whatever you have. If you don't, then whenever it's light brown or whatever."  
  
"I baked that cake this morning."  
  
Kaga stopped laughing at the stupid question before, but he didn't stop smirking. "So what? Big deal. I can bake a cake too, if I tried."  
  
The researcher sighed, and the smile that had been slipping since through the entire exchange finally fell completely. The twenty-two year old trudged out, not forgetting his coat, but leaving the crumbs of cake and all the ingredients still on the table. The door closed without a goodbye, and inwardly Kaga seethed. How dared that guy try and cheek him? He was just pretending like the rest of them, pretending to be his friend so that they wouldn't ever get on his bad side when he finally got out of this hellhole. He was just waiting to kick him in jail, to watch him rot and then that stupid researcher would laugh his head off when he died.  
  
The rage came up so fast that he barely noticed it was there. He knew that they were just grinning masks to mock him. They didn't care - no one cared, except for himself. Abruptly he got up, wedged his hands under the table, and upended the entire thing. The contents were knocked to the ground; in a moment his cell looked like someone had dropped a bomb in it. The anger surged like a tsunami inside of him, unrestrained. The cell now looked as if it were a pig pen with eggshells, salt on the pillow, and baking soda ground under his heel from where the box had done an abrupt 360 in the air and sprayed everything. How dared they come in here and greet him in their falsetto little voices? They were just timid little mice, they couldn't control him, they were just afraid of what would happen when he got out. They were just vultures, hoping he wouldn't escape and just die in his cell.  
  
"The cake sucked!", he screamed to the walls. The small space deadened his voice. "And so does my life!"  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Well. That certainly was interesting. So, Kaga throws a tantrum like a five year old. That's okay, I guess. *laughs sinisterly* I wonder what I'm going to do to him next? I think I have something (just so this fic isn't going around in circles or something), especially after talking it over with another friend of mine that's also a writer. So, yeah.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	3. Hopping Islands

Ch.3: Hopping Islands  
  
He began to swim, his strokes strong. He gasped when the cold water lapped up to his waist, then took a deep breath and plunged down into the water. No one knew how strong he could swim except for his dad, who didn't care for him anyhow. He'd gone and tried out for the swim team on a whim, especially when his dad made it clear that he wanted to see his son on the team partly because they'd heard that swimming made a person grow taller and physically more fit, and partly because his dad had been on the swim team when he was in high school. Of course, Kaga had never been good enough to please his father even in that aspect - his dad wanted medals, awards, pride, and he hadn't been able to satisfy that side of the equation. He didn't care, though - once he was free from the island he was free from everyone else as well. He'd never have to see his dad's or anybody else's faces ever again. With that thought, his strokes seemed to grow confident, and he swam even stronger. Overhead, though he couldn't see it, clouds swelled in the sky like billowing sails, and the wind against his back drove cold needles into his wooden limbs.  
  
It wasn't until it was almost dark that he looked back. When he was swimming, he retained a sort of half-conscious, not quite paying attention to where he was going. Now, he looked back - and the cold seemed to freeze straight to the marrow of his bones. He was in the exact same place that he had been a thousand strokes earlier. But how could that be? He stopped and treaded water, watching the waves push him, push AGAINST him - with every two strokes he waved, a giant invisible hand was pushing him back. In his anger, he had failed to consider the incoming tide. A flare of anger flickered to life inside of him, trying to get him to blame whoever had done this to him; but he couldn't very well fight an ocean like he could another human being. Resigning to float back to shore, the trip back into the bay took relatively little time to the eons he had swam. Shivering, he looked for his shirt and shoes that he had left on the beach.  
  
Trudging back towards the stream, he saw that the shelter was now no more than a smoldering mass of debris-strewn coals. He stirred them up gently, and they ate up the oxygen finally exposed to them greedily. He fed the small fire with little dry twigs and bark that he found lying around. A little ways to the charred settlement, he found the blanket that Shindou had specifically told him not to harm because it was handmade and had been used by many people to heal themselves before. For a little while he frowned over it in puzzlement - had he missed when he threw it in the doorway of the shelter to burn like all the other materials? But that was of no great importance now; he had the blanket, and the blanket kept him at least slightly warm beside the fire. He was careful not to let it catch - but at the same time, he wasn't exactly willing to forsake his warm fire either. He shivered most of the night away under it, getting up once in a while to gather a little wood and poke at the fire until it sent up a massive shower of sparks.  
  
It was autumn already, not quite close to winter but so red and orange in the air that a person would turn their head at the slight sound of the cranes south, or the salmon that had still survived swimming downstream. The season screamed in the air like its multicolored leaves, warning of cold and of chilliness that had nothing to do with the weather. Kaga felt that way now - he felt as if the season was trying to warn him that this was a bad idea or something like that. It was probably just his nerves working, though, overdriven by the numbness of the water and the wind that flickered his little heap of coals. He'd expected the cold to come, a slow, seeping cold, not biting - the casual freezing of his marrow in his bones that seeped into him like groundwater. Vaguely he hoped that no wild animals would attack that night - he'd be two stiff to even wave a stick.  
  
Somewhere along the night, he fell asleep with his back against a now-warm boulder, heated by his body, the blanket and the fire. He awoke again when it was morning, a little misty and very mysterious, when it was almost light and not-quite light. Half-awake, he dreamed that the mist slowly billowed away with the rising of the sun, and that the light brought sparkles and shafts streaming down like sunshine in the times that the clouds didn't mask its brilliance. He wasn't thinking, he wasn't even conscious of the things he was seeing - and yet he knew that this was not a dream. He had no thoughts; it was as if he were rooted as a part of the earth, a part of the boulder that he was leaning on, and he was observing his children as if he were Earth itself, watching his children play. The sky felt so peaceful, so blue it was dizzying, and the clouds took their time across the sky. The world was beautiful, he thought with a burst of sudden inspiration that lanced through him suddenly, the world IS BEAUTIFUL. And then he returned to that calm state, half-rooted into the Earth as if he had tendrils like a tree, reaching down to grasp life in its own hands. Slower came the thought to him: how much of the Earth had been destroyed?  
  
A slow, dull sound slowly came to him, and he turned his attention away from it. It seemed to be coming from far away - he didn't want to leave his peace just yet, but gradually the sound built on his nerves and grew closer and generally more annoying. As it slowly approached, reality suddenly hit him like lightning and he sat up straight, all peace forgotten. Panicking, he scampered around madly for a moment, still clutching the blanket to himself protectively.  
  
The boat! Shindou and Touya were coming back to check on him! But hadn't they said that they'd come back two days after he'd been all properly settled in? What were they doing back so soon? But slowly, slowly his mind registered that perhaps he HAD been asleep for an entire day, thus waking up on the third day. The exhaustion from his fruitless attempt to get off of the island could have just rendered him tired and fatigued and it was possible that he HAD slept through two days.  
  
The fire was dead; he poked it with a stick. He leapt out of sight of the bay, which he presumed the skiff would be landing. Folding up the blanket hastily, he held it over his head as he splashed into the stream, leaving rocks and fine sand disturbed in his wake - he'd need the blanket later. He didn't even bother to take off his pants as he waded in, he was more concerned with finding a place to hide in. A shot of silver sped past his foot and he knew it was a small fish. Quickly he balanced the blanket over his head as he settled himself under a completely ivy-strewn overhang that fell like a woven green curtain over a jagged rut in the side of the bank. He climbed into the small niche at once, rubbing his feet dry with the blanket and being careful not to drop it into the stream. The waters seemed to read his thoughts - they washed away his footprints like they were nothing. His pants were wet, but he didn't want to attract any attention or movement while the two scouts were still out, and so he sat tight and waited for the telltale sound of the skiff leaving.  
  
It could have been until dark that Shindou and Touya might go, but the moment of beauty in the world had left him strangely satisfied with waiting for the moment. Patience, for the moment, was in him, and even the normal swellings of anger that rose up in him seemed to fall silent and think for a little while. A few times the fleeting temptation of stealing the skiff and leaving the island in a blaze of glory would be wonderful - but was it possible to steal a boat underneath Touya's nose? Probably not. They were probably still checking out the burnt remains of the shelter, he thought, and hoped that they would leave soon. As night fell, he hugged his now- only slightly damp pants to his chest and tried to ignore the rock that poked him in the back. Annoyance started to rise up in him but he quelled it - now wasn't the time to get all hasty and do something that might get him caught again now that he'd escaped. He sat in the cranny of rock, huddled under the blanket like the night or two nights before. As the sun fell (as it did early in the northern hemisphere), his stomach growled with it, but then fell silent when it realized that it would not be fed tonight. He watched the red disk dip behind the trees, thrilling in the way the sun seemed to dye the edge of the green-and-black pines an angry red war paint.  
  
They wouldn't be staying for long, he reassured himself. They probably didn't bring any supplies to live off of, anyway, so they probably wouldn't spend more than a night. He was right, at least this time - in the wee hours of the morning, he awoke to the sound of the skiff's motor. Waiting until the noise was completely out of his range of hearing, he rolled up his pants and waded back to the bank. At the place where he had splashed in, he noted that there were two other sets of prints beside it, more subtle and not as cut into the mud as his old ones were that he had made in his haste. He skirted the clearing where the shelter had been carefully erected and callously misused to the ground, and also the obvious spot where the two searchers had stayed the night before. There were remains of a small fire, and leaves had been kicked around. Though he doubted the prospect, he was wary that maybe one of them was still on the island while the other went back for assistance. But as he walked around, saying their names, he realized that there truly WASN'T anyone there. Of course, he sneered to himself, he was probably just a little nuisance to them anyway. He hoped that they didn't come back. He hoped that he'd NEVER have to see their faces again.  
  
He started into the water about noon or so, knowing that if he waited any longer than that, he'd miss the strongest part of the tide, which would bring him to some other island. It looked as if Shindou and Touya hadn't left anything behind except for a small length of rope they'd used to tie up the skiff when they'd landed on the island. He bundled his clothes into a bundle and wrapped the blanket around it, then secured the entire package to his back. If he was going to escape from the rest of them, he'd have to be at least slightly civilized - he'd have took look decent, at least. He looked down at his shoes regretfully - they'd be a lot of trouble, and they would probably shrink with ever single time he dipped them in water. He tossed them to the side into some bushes, and figured that he'd just find some slippers later or something. Taking a deep (and shocked) breath at the coldness, he plunged himself into the water and just floated for a moment, watching the waters swirl before his eyes before he started to swim. This time he was sure that the die was flowing out, and he made out to the open sea in half the time it had taken before. He treaded water after he'd left the bay, and the waters drifted him away from the island, towards another one in the distance. He hoped that there was freshwater on that island - he started to swim towards it, his arms moving in familiar motion.  
  
But by the time he got there, the sun was already setting. He dragged himself exhaustedly from the bank, made sure that he couldn't be seen from the bay that he'd entered, and then flopped down with his back against a tree, ignoring the pine needles that poked his legs. He fell asleep and stayed that way until the next afternoon, when the sun was only starting to turn the tops of the trees red and brown. His clothes were still a little damp, though, because he'd forgotten to lay them out when he'd arrived - but he put them on anyway. Gathering some sticks and tinder, he struck sparks with the Swiss Army knife that he'd found by chance still in his pants pocket into the small pile of dry wood. It was hard going; it seemed that the tinder would never catch, the sparks flickering out before they reached the wood. But he persisted, and by the time the sun was completely down he had a small, steady blaze going, feeding it pine needles. Careful to sit with the wind at his back so that the smoke wouldn't blow in his face, he huddled under the blanket again for the second night in a row and waited for the morning to arrive.  
  
He stayed on that particular island for two days, catching fish for lunch by loosely weaving ivy strands together in some form of a rough basket so that when a fish swam on top, he would jerk it up and throw it on bank, then kill and scrape off the scales with his knife. Mostly what he found for tinder was pine needles, which gave off a lot of smoke - he managed to learn how to make the fire occupy only a little space, and smoked the fish rather than cooked it. He swam to another island the day after the next, and slowly his body began to get used to swimming every day - he hadn't been exercising all that much when he was in the detention center, but now he could feel his muscles were starting to build themselves up again, getting ready for daily rigorous work.  
  
Several times, he heard the sound of motorboats, but none of them stopped at his island. He wondered if they were searching for him, and at the thought a little fear crept into him despite his efforts to keep it away - the thought of having to face a bigger punishment. In his mind, he was starting to understand - there was no "second chance" this time. This was it. This was the END.  
  
He knew his final destination, of course, was the large landmass in the distance. He hopped islands daily, sometimes hopping two at a time if he had managed to catch fish and eat well. He went down the chain of islands one after the other, always heading for the mainland - or, rather, the large island of Hokkaido. He wouldn't be on the large island just yet. But he didn't care - he'd be able to escape from Hokkaido when he got there. And he'd never, ever have to see any of them ever again.  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Why do you think Kaga hates everyone so much? Well, simply because everyone hates him, or so he thinks - mainly, it's just his dad, but because of his dad he thinks that everyone hates him as well. I'm sorry if the ending of this chapter was. . .unsatisfying. But, it gives insight on just where he's going, where he's heading, I guess. I partly based this on a book - but now, I've completely started going off the plot in the book, so I'm pretty glad I'm not copying anymore. Hope you enjoyed it!  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	4. January 8

Ch.4: January 8  
  
He thought it was just all a big hassle, after all - why did he have to go and sign himself up for THIS anyway? But then, of course, he'd remember the prison cell hanging over his head like some threatening cloud ready to split, and he'd decide that it was worth it. The Round Square called meetings to judge his innocence and his will for recovery (of course, he himself knew just how far gone he was) and also decide whether or not they should just doom him to regular justice or not. Generally, there were posters and schedules put up everywhere just so that anyone who wanted to come and say something about him could come and say it - this meant everyone and anyone, even his classmates, whom he was sure wouldn't pass up an opportunity to laugh at him in front of other people - but mercifully, no one except for thirty some-odd Round Square council members and some other people came.  
  
As the people filed in, Kaga could almost imagine what they would say, whether in his defense or his prosecution. Some of them looked like they had dung up their noses or were smelling something particularly bad, the way that they held their heads high with that exaggerated pompous air. Others eyed him curiously, and he felt considerably warmer towards those people, as if they actually cared. Chances were they did - that would make it easier to manipulate them, though. Some of the others, though, were downright incriminating, watching him like a hawk as if he'd sprout gatling guns and gun everyone down in a fit of terrorist action, staring at him as if he wasn't all that he seemed to be. What, he wasn't living up to the stereotype criminal standards now? He'd just say what they wanted to hear, fake a tear or two, and pretend that he wanted to apologize, repent for what he'd done. They were just laughing, all of them, the fools, but he'd show all of them when he ran away that he could do anything.  
  
He watched Shindou come in, hanging his coat on one of the pegs, and then nodding respectfully to the RoundKeeper and then to him. After that, Kaga's parents came in, and he clenched his fists - there was his father, dressed in a three-piece suit that was completely out of place with the casual clothing that the rest of the people were wearing, and then his mother who looked like a plastic, perfect Barbie doll without a single hair sticking out. This was just another cocktail party to them. They hadn't even greeted each other yet as they sat one to a side of. When the RoundKeeper called order, he found himself comparing his mother's shaking, clammy hand to his father's iron-shod grip. He let go extremely quickly, resisting the urge to clean his hands on the sides of his pants in disgust - it wouldn't have been polite, and the council members were no doubt looking for some spark of decency or manners in him, so he just sat down and plopped his hands in his lap.  
  
They'd almost gotten started, gotten through the introductions when the door opened yet again. Shindou was in the middle of describing what had been purloined from the store he'd robbed when he trailed off, choked, and then shut his mouth completely. He was not smiling. Kaga had to turn around to see why - the Kimihiro family was there with their lawyer, examining the circle and its members. They got seats quietly, but it seemed eternity until they sat down because no one spoke in that entire time.  
  
He looked at Kimihiro neutrally, noticing that the Kimihiro's lawyer was scrutinizing him like he was going to throw a magic spell or something and blast everyone to oblivion. Of course, that wasn't likely, but he found himself looking away all the same, as if the lawyer had forced him to look away. The boy, he decided, looked underfed and malnourished, like he'd had too many days in a dark prison cell. He seemed to gleam like the dead, shuttered eyes that didn't even seem to blink. A few times, he caught Kimihiro looking back at him, and he tried to smile even though his face wouldn't obey anything but a half-frown. Temporarily startled by his reaction to Kimihiro's weakness - where in the world had the reaction "smile" come into his mind about THAT particular tattletale? - he frowned again, this time to himself. He hadn't smiled, of course, for the longest time, even before he'd ground Kimihiro's face into the pavement. But when the boy spoke, that was when he realized that the change was hardly physical - just what had he said to Kimihiro as those last parting words before the police had dragged him off?  
  
"My name is Kimihiro Tsutui", he said timidly. "I'm here 'cause I got beat up." He gave a completely dead look at everyone in the circle, then his pale face drooped again and the shoulders slumped unwelcomingly into the chair. For the first time in a very long time, Kaga felt something like a twist in his gut, something very much like guilt. He hadn't wanted to hurt anyone, but Kimihiro had just gotten in the way - all of this wouldn't have happened if Kimihiro had just kept his mouth shut. Always, it was always someone else's fault - why would it be his fault? He was the one that everyone hated and everyone feared, and he knew that that was the only way to control people.  
  
And suddenly, that sporadic anger burst out at him again, filling his face and his thoughts with hate like fire through his veins, like whiskey with too much alcohol, and he had to concentrate on a point in the ground to force that pounding heartbeat to go down in his ears. No, he couldn't loose his cool now, not in front of all these people, some of the council members were just waiting for him to explode to prove that he was 'mentally unstable' and 'potentially dangerous' and all of those stupid, stereotypical things that they said every time they had a meeting. They were stupid, they were fools to think that they were smart and that they could control him - he was in charge of HIMSELF, and no one else could do anything about it. He hated the meetings - sitting across from the slimeball tattletale he'd beat up, around his parents who didn't care, a stick-up-his-arse lawyer who looked like he'd been dipped in plastic, and around Shindou, who just served as pretty, smiling furniture. Suddenly the comments seemed so cutting to him, as if all of them were knives and murderers coming out at him. When did they become so potent? When did they control his thoughts? He wanted to tune them out, but he found that he only wanted to hear more of their remarks, hear more of what they wanted to say about him, humiliating him.  
  
But that anger DID explode when his dad got up and said, "We've always done our best for out little boy. We've done so much for him that -"  
  
"Bullshit!", Kaga countered, standing up so fast that his chair clattered over. The sound reverberated off the walls like some sick parody of a laugh, and he continued. "That's a lie and you know it! You drink till you're dead on the couch, and any other time I don't even know where you are! A so-called 'devoted parent' you are when you whip me until my largest sweatshirt can't hide all the bruises!"  
  
He watched that face - how he hated that stupid face - turn red with something like fear or embarrassment. Roughly his dad seized his arm by one large hand, but then let go when he became aware of all those watching eyes. "I don't beat you, you know that." He could see his dad's Adam's apple bobbing up and down nervously. "Those were just careless swats, when you deserved them." The RoundKeeper stood to stop the argument, but Kaga ignored her.  
  
"You're usually to drunk to even know your own name!" And then, quieter but more venomously he added, "I bet you don't even know when my birthday is!"  
  
He didn't smile, though, when his father gaped like a landed fish and tried to answer but found no ready answer coming to mouth. There was no triumph in this, of course - he wasn't the one who was going to judge the information and send him to jail, so he couldn't be sure of what other people's reactions would be to the information. He chanced a look around when the discussion had begun again, and saw that some faces had figured out beforehand that this was probably the case, while others were completely and utterly surprised at the news. Either way, though it would help him, give a reason to his anger.  
  
There wasn't much said in his defense until Kimihiro's mother said suddenly, "I feel that Tsutui is sick." Every head turned to look at her. "He's so sick that he can't open his eyes from all the nightmares he has a night. A thousand, a million years of jail won't bring his vivacity back - but at the same time, no parent should ever have to worry about their child getting beat up in the streets just because of something he said. But. . .", she glanced at her son, "he should be given a chance, too, to recover - it doesn't bode well for someone to spend their life bitterly in jail when he could be recovering from his own anger." She looked at Kaga, and there was a sort of trust there, as if she believed all the lies that he'd said about wanting to get over his anger.  
  
Wasn't this what he wanted? He wanted it to be so that he could escape from the law and everything else forever. Even the prosecutors were speaking up for him! But lying about this wasn't quite like lying about anything else - the person believed his lies, and that made all the difference. He squirmed in his chair, aware of all the eyes on him suddenly, and he nodded back to Kimihiro's mother as if to thank her for her words. He watched further as she leaned over, stroked Tsutui's head, and whispered something comforting in his ear. The face seemed to straighten itself from a frown, and the boy's shoulders seemed to stop shivering. But the eyes were still cold, too far gone for anyone to reach. Kaga slouched lower in his seat as Kimihiro prepared to speak.  
  
"I think", the boy said quietly, clearly still lacking confidence, "that someone should smash Kaga's head into a sidewalk so that he knows how if feels too." And he went back into sulking.  
  
The Round Square was quiet for a moment. Then, slowly, the comments started back up, and the comment was all but forgotten. The meeting ended with a prayer, a promise of sorts to provide harmony to everyone they met, and then the circle dispersed. Kaga blatantly refused to hold hands with either of his parents, he didn't want to feel their sweaty palms, nervous of their reputations that hung in balance, that might get ruined if the Round Square said no. A dressed-up puppet to the one side, a conniving liar on the other - worthless, both of them. If the RoundKeeper noticed there was a break in the circle, she didn't comment. He couldn't let them get away this time with pretending that they loved him, not this time or any other time from then on, not if he could help it.  
  
Shindou came up afterwards, smiling still as if nothing had ever happened. "So, you still aren't buying responsibility to change your attitude?", he asked nonchalantly.  
  
"That's exactly what this is about", said his dad all-importantly from the side before Kaga could say anything in return to Shindou. But before he could snap a remark back at his dad, Shindou had already plowed in with a well-placed statement:  
  
"Right. So, if this is about responsibility, when IS your son's birthday?", he asked, still smiling, the gesture still oddly out of place. For a moment, Kaga wondered how a person could smile and still have those eyes look positively murderous at the same time - certainly, that was what the twenty-two year old researcher was doing now, a perfect balance of hate and sarcasm in his face. Kaga's dad mumbled something in return, something along the lines of "August" and that "birthdays aren't celebrated in our house", and then left. Shindou and Kaga stood there, in the middle of the emptying hall, and the delinquent fumed.  
  
"He was lying!", he protested to Shindou. "My birthday's in January!"  
  
But Shindou had turned to him, and if he had thought that the researcher's eyes were icy before, it was nothing compared to them now. The smile, more than ever, seemed cut out from a magazine and pasted over Shindou's face instead of it being a natural gesture. "But certainly, Kaga", he said lightly still, "he wasn't the only one lying, don't you think?"  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
*coughs* Well, I don't know whether you liked THAT particular chapter, but things are starting to warm up, doncha think? Some of the stuff (I'm painfully admitting) I still get from the book, like this chapter. I didn't copy it word for word, though, and I mixed a lot of the words up and added a lot of my own similes to the entire thing. Shindou's final words are nice, though. I had to go online to check out Kaga's actual birthday - it IS Jan. 8, right?  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	5. Halloween Village

Ch.5: Halloween Village  
  
It snowed the day he arrived on Hokkaido.  
  
He'd been putting that thought out of his mind for the past week. It was only August - surely the winter wouldn't come that fast? But it had; while he swam, the flakes drifted down like lonely little clowns, dancing their way into the water, where they melted instantly. For one entire minute, he stopped and treaded water in the middle of the ocean, watching as the snow spiraled down from above. There was no time. He shouldn't have been surprised, of course - the weather had been turning steadily colder the week before, but certainly he hadn't been expecting snow until December. He'd circled a little corner of the large bulk of Hokkaido, looking for some quaint little fishing village he might live by so that he might get help when he most desperately needed it.  
  
Not that he'd ever need help. He was alone now, and he liked that. He didn't need anyone bossing him around or anything anymore. He was independent now - he'd NEVER need someone else anymore, he'd survive all on his own, detached where no one could touch him.  
  
In spite of the drastic change in weather, he swam at noon everyday, taking the afternoon to dry his blanket and his now-thoroughly shrunken clothes. Once, he'd been careless enough to sleep out in the open - the next morning the blanket and his clothes shone a crackling silver from the frost that had accumulated over the course of the night. He didn't make that mistake again; even as tired as he was after his swimming, he'd pull himself into a cave or some other semblance of shelter before hobbling around for dry wood to light a fire to. Similarly, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find any dry tinder to light at all. Every night without fail, he would huddle under the still-damp blanket, staring into the flames as he wished for food. Sometimes he could catch some. Other times he wasn't so lucky.  
  
It was getting so cold that he couldn't get up before nine without being frozen into an icicle. The temperature outside of his hovel of warmth inside of his blanket was scarcely warmer than the water, in which he swam in every day for the past two weeks. Now that he'd found a seaside village to park his winter camp by, he'd gone up on shore, still admiring the way those downy chips of ice turned lazily in midair.  
  
He WAS a bit afraid now, he grudgingly admitted to himself. But he wouldn't ever tell that to anyone else, ever. There was no one to tell it to anyway.  
  
The first night he spent on Hokkaido was spent in the forest. The village he'd seen was only a little ways from his makeshift camp, but he didn't want to rely on it for materials or anything. He lit a fire and collected enough brush to last one night and then laid out his clothes and his blanket to dry. He was glad that there was a little rock outcropping to hide him from the wind - but even more than that, he was surprised when night fell completely and no one from the village came to check out the smoke from the fire he'd made. Taking heart in the fact that possibly the villagers had heard of a certain mad juvenile delinquent on the loose, he resolved to pack up everything the next day and move to another place, away from human habitation. However, his gloating mood dissolved when he awoke the next day to somber skies and more fat flakes billowing down. Leaving the fire unattended (he knew that it wouldn't burn down the forest or anything - everything was too soaked), he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and head, he walked out into the world.  
  
Being from Tokyo, he'd seen snow in the streets, snow in movies, but never had he seen snow, THIS much snow, in a natural setting. He understood, just a little bit, why those crazy drunk poets from bygone ages wrote countless poems on the shape of trees and contrast of sunshine on glittering snow. These were large hexagonal chips of - something like icing he'd seen on a cake a long time ago - falling so silently and so effortlessly graceful, arraying his surroundings in a new white fur coat. He'd left his shoes on that first island he'd left, so the moment his toes found the ground covered with frost his entire body had started to shiver. But for the moment, all he could really see was the blanket, this NEW fashion of the world, watching him as he watched it. A sudden chill rippled through him, not from the cold.  
  
"The world IS beautiful", he sucked in the cold air through his nose suddenly and felt his brain freeze up, sending sparks in front of his eyes. It was, after all - he almost felt like a child again, running through the streets, tumbling into drifts and sliding on the unseen panes of glass that coated the sidewalks and pedestrian crossings. But he wasn't there in the place of his memories, was he? He returned to reality, he was a juvenile delinquent running from the law to make some other life for himself. Was it possible to be surrounded by so much and be alone at the same time?  
  
He knew why the Round Square wanted him to come here now, to isolate him in this place of silent watchfulness, as if all of Nature were watching him to see what move he would make first. In all the times before, he'd had someone he could blame, someone he could hurt physically. But how could a person hurt Nature? They could burn trees - but those grew back. They could kill the fish - but new ones would take their places. Nature was invincible - a person couldn't punch Nature and couldn't hurt Nature until every bone broke in their bodies and they were screaming with pain. Kaga knew, as well as any other person, that he couldn't fight the cold, couldn't cheat the hunger. He couldn't punch snowflakes. Whatever he did, he couldn't even make a dent in Nature because it would just regenerate, grow back over those old scars.  
  
Here, he was tiny and insignificant, part of a larger circle that he couldn't control. This wasn't Tokyo, in this place there was no one to fear him and his angry fists, in this place there was no one to bully and toss around. There was no one to make him feel better here - there was no one here at all.  
  
Suddenly he had to see another human being. For one bizarre moment, he wanted to shout for someone to listen to him, to pay attention to him - someone he could touch, someone who could feel pain, that pain inside of him. Faster and faster his feet flew, taking him into the midst of that town, desperation telling him to see someone, anyone. His breath came out in clouded gasps, puffing in front of him like ghosts - for indeed, the town was dead.  
  
He entered the main square, silent except for the noiseless falling of snow. Squinting, he could almost pretend to himself that there were lights in the windows of the shops, imagine silhouettes against glass-paned windows, see the merriment of some Ainu festival or another. But no people were in the houses, not traversing the streets, not crowding the abandoned train station with its rusty red tracks. Against the glare of the newly fallen snow the windows peered like dark, hollowed-out eyes. Turning in a full circle around, he realized that he hadn't seen the desolation before, he hadn't paid attention to the half-hinged doors, the caved in roofs, the broken glass windows that hadn't been repaired. There was no other human soul here in sight, at least none visible. He shivered at the thought that ghosts might be inhabiting the place.  
  
He chided his chattering nerves - he'd never been afraid of the preternatural before, never believed in anything supernatural before - it wasn't the time to start. And yet, he wasn't able to suppress that sudden fear of anything that moved. But there was much to fear if he was afraid of everything that moved, wasn't there? The snow drifted around him, the wind blowing against his ear - he felt everything so keenly now, the coldness of his toes and the frozen marrow of his bones. He HAD to find someone.  
  
The panic set in suddenly, and he dashed to the front door of what used to be an inn. Knocking hard and receiving no answer to his pleas, he broke open the door and half-sobbing, ran up the stairs. He felt as if something was watching him, that sensation stronger than ever, as if the ghosts were following him, haunting his ever step - he didn't want to be there! He wanted to be back in Tokyo - even if he had to pay his jail sentence - even if he had to apologize to that Kimihiro - even if he had to be a slave for the rest of his life. He knew now that there was no one there, no proprietress and no owner, he was alone and completely cowed and insignificant - he'd never felt so small before -  
  
- except, except . . .when his father beat him.  
  
He knocked into a random door, suddenly, a small room that probably, in the prime of the inn's existence, would have cost a pretty penny because it looked out just over the town. The view from the window as especially pretty today because the snow had just newly fallen. Perhaps a strange sight because there were still red-and-yellow leaves on the trees because autumn hadn't completely passed yet and there was already snow on it. But his gaze wasn't on the pretty view - it was on just what was underneath the windowsill, facing him.  
  
He had found his other human. The only problem was that the person had obviously been dead for some time now. The corpse at some point had been maggot-ridden, and beside it were those insects who had died when the corpse rotted. The clothes were still in pristine condition - a perfect preservation of the clothes of the 1980s - and the empty sockets where Asian almond eyes should have been stared up at Kaga as if in wonder that someone had finally come to visit him after all these years. One hand was stretched to hold the knees to the chest, the other was stretching out on the floor, splinters growing between the fingernail and the shriveled skin. It seemed to him that the corpse was reaching out to him. Then all at once, it reached up and grabbed his wrist where his arm hung at his side. The dank, scratchy skin horrified him.  
  
Very uncharacteristically, he screamed. Wrenching his hand from the skeleton, he turned and ran, all the time feeling those empty black holes boring into his back, watching, always watching. He ran all the way back to the cave where the fire still burned merrily, where he huddled underneath the blanket and felt cold, clammy hands find their way around his neck and slowly strangle him underwater. He could hear them, of course, now that he'd seen the corpse - he could hear the voices of those lovely ghosts who he'd disturbed. And it made him very lonely that he was the only living thing among a world of dead.  
  
And that was the way that the people found him, a day later, curled up in a fetal position beside a long burnt-out fire. The two adults looked at each other, then at the muttering boy, then back at each other. Then one seized him, telling him to snap out of it - but Kaga just looked up at him and said quite calmly, "I'm lonely. Are you a ghost? You're the first one I've physically seen so far."  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Well, that certainly was strange. Don't worry, Kaga will get better. Poor boy's been a bit traumatized, you see. Nothing serious or permanent - just needs his head screwed on a little tighter, you see. *grins* It won't be long until he really wakes up, don't you worry. Story's not ending with Kaga's head in the clouds. Oh! And actually, it snows in DECEMBER in Hokkaido, not August. I just made that up. Hokkaido's not THAT high in the Artic.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	6. Lead

Ch. 6: Lead  
  
It was all quiet in the room he woke up in. It wasn't a slow, long- drawn-out wakening - rather, it was as if a silent alarm had gone off in his head. There were wooden beams of a ceiling crisscrossing in his vision. Idly he squinted his eyes to find the patterns in the old wood, swirls and whorls like that of a fingerprint. There was a window somewhere in the small room, and it was open; he could feel the wind turning his nose red from the cold. The coverlet tucked under his chin was thick and comforting, like a blanket of love that he had never felt before. The small room was dark with little furniture other than the tatami he lay on, though he could see a small two-set of drawers and an altar with burnt out incense in the corner. Again, that peace settled over him like it had in the snowy wood, that perfect balance of consciousness and dream. All of his surroundings seemed to come in on a pinpoint focus, the dark wood shining in the moonlight more clearly than he had ever seen it before, the shot of silver that illuminated the colors of the room in a hard, edged light when the curtains flapped in the wind. He felt that if he moved now he would break this peace, this carefully balanced set of nature's laws, and destroy all of the peace that he had finally found in this place.  
  
He had heard once of what it was to pray to God. A person would pray with all of his might, placing all of his fate into the hands of God so that God could help him, that God could save him. That was what it was now - he was praying to Earth itself, praying that She might help him, that She might bring him peace from the anger and the things he did to get control. Within the depths of his heart he felt that prayer come forth silently while he felt his eyes cloud up with something - was it tears? no, it couldn't be, he hadn't cried ever since he could remember - he told the entire world that he was sorry for what he had done and that he deserved all that they had thrown at him, that he deserved all the time in jail. He felt one with the Earth and fell into a platonic peace, as if he could finally trust someone or someone so completely to give him security when he needed it.  
  
He wondered what he looked like now, the tears streaming down his cheeks as he sobbed quietly. Why, why did he have to pray to God to give him peace? Why couldn't he find it like anyone else? Again came up that awful feeling that he should blame someone - but who was he to blame for placing him in a drunken family like his? He needed, more than ever, forgiveness. But almost as he despaired in finding any, he seemed to hear Her very voice whispering in his ear: Earth has given you Her forgiveness, but she is not human, Now you need to make peace with your own kind. But where would he find that, how would he find that when all the world wanted him dead?  
  
No doubt they were searching for him with rifles and guns and lots of terrible weapons. But instead of the welling of anger like before, the fearless "I'll defeat them all" attitude that he wore before - there was a soft pulsing of emotion, not particularly strong or courageous, but reaching into the depths of his soul to make him see what mattered, what he needed. Sadness filled him when he realized that they would never know what the Mother Earth said to him before he died at the point of their guns.  
  
He could feel himself starting to die. But it wasn't like before; he couldn't feel anything other than that heavy weighing of sadness upon his soul. He felt no anger, and the absence of that emotion left him hollow and drained. Now, he didn't know how to feel, how to deal with the lull in time that held him in limbo - he hadn't realized how much he'd depended on his anger to feel human. What was he now with his emotions kept so simple and so few that he could list them off of his fingers?  
  
He was ashamed. He tried to turn so that his head was in the pillow and found he couldn't.  
  
For a moment the insane notion that he was now in a scientific lab where a mad scientist would now perform untried and untested experiments on his drugged body, but of course that could not be true. Simply, his right hand felt heavy, like lead. With a heave, he turned over on his stomach, the right hand falling to his side. Cautiously he used his left hand to touch it, feel if it was there, and it was. Bandages were wrapping it tightly, and he almost tore them off when he felt something odd. He couldn't feel his left hand over his right hand. No warmth, no sensation at all. Certainly the bandages couldn't be that thick! Trying to suppress the sudden dread at what he was going to see, he undid the bandages and held the hand under the window.  
  
Even in the pale light of the moon, it seemed completely unearthly, a lustrous silver-black like a tumbled stone he had seen once at a craft stone. Furthermore, it reminded him of the statue outside of the Japanese Modern Art Museum, a copy of the "Thinker" that was outside some museum on the west coast of the United States somewhere. He watched in ill-disguised horror as the veins under that metal skin pulsed with sluggish substance. Slowly he tried to bend the fingers, and found that it was useless. It was if it really HAD been carved out of stone, or metal, or something unmovable and unchangeable. His heart beat wildly inside of him - with a mad sort of anger, he suddenly grabbed that hand and tried to pull it off. Pain exploded in his wrist. He had dislocated it in his rage.  
  
How could such a thing happen to him? Who had ever heard of a lead hand? But as he watched, he realized that soon he would have more than just a lead hand - he would have a lead arm, a lead torso, and a lead head. The silver-blue metal gleamed in the moonlight like the socket of the corpse's eye in the dilapidated village. Slowly, even as he watched, it crept forward like mist and swallowed his wrist whole, then stopped, as if the metal had been satisfied with eating that part of a meal. He spent one more minute at it, his mind bursting with uncertainties, with terrible and wonderful and impossible suggestions that he would never allow, and questions that wound around his head like May Day flowers. Snatching up the bandages, he rewrapped his hand, making sure that no metal could be seen, not at the fingers or anything. His hand had frozen in a half-curled position, making it hard to wrap, but he did it finally by just wrapping all the fingers together. That deformed, twisted hand finally out of his sight seemed to calm him. He stuffed it under the bedsheets and tried to think rationally, but it felt as if the hand was an eye, seeking to burn him out of possibilities.  
  
He could die, could he? What if he cut it off? And even now, when it was out of his sight, he felt that what pumped in the thin veins that were now no different color than the skin surrounding it wasn't blood. It seemed to insidious to be blood - he'd always thought of blood to be the core of a person, the thing that kept a person breathing and living, something pure and something that couldn't change even if a person changed evil. But whatever was flowing in that hand, it seemed like poison. Shivering, he got up, his head suddenly dizzy from lying down for so long, and then staggered to the door and pulled it opened.  
  
Immediately he was struck by how warm it was. The hand in his side began to tingle, and when he laid his normal hand on top of the bandages, he was surprised to find it warm. A heady sort of feeling overtook his dizziness, clearing his thoughts somewhat. Something about the atmosphere, something about the very air in the air of the building seemed to warm him considerably even though the windows were open at both ends of the hall and were pouring forth the same cold wind that had been in the room. The very lights that hung above him seemed to smile at him. Instantly, his shields went up and the room went completely cold again. Now it was no more than a picture of a hall.  
  
Still shivering, he made his way cautiously down the hall, his head once again spinning with his sudden standing up. He wondered how long he had been out. The house was rather large, at least in his opinion as he looked around. He was just about to give up hope of finding anyone when he spotted a crack of light from under a door. Without bothering to knock - why would he ever have to knock on any goddamn door? - he plunged straight in. Golden lamplight filled his senses at once, sending unwelcome light dancing in front of his eyes for a moment. Soft shadows were cast over the wooden walls, their shapes curvy like women's figures. At first he thought there was no one there, then he suddenly did a double-take when he noticed there was a person sitting perfectly still on the bed, a book in hand, and dark eyes seemingly bright yellow in the dim light.  
  
The other boy smiled at Kaga. "You're awake?", he asked, but that question needed no answer. Putting aside the book carefully, he courteously gestured to the opposite bed so that the juvenile delinquent could sit down. This boy's eyes were mysteriously warm but guarded. But everything about the boy seemed to radiate more than just common cold politeness - it seemed to be much more, as if every gesture was meant from the heart. The way he walked with such care, with such elegance made Kaga watch him rather dumbly. He was still staring dumbly when the boy caught his glance again and laughed quietly. "I don't think I'm particularly beautiful, but I guess all people have different tastes." At the comment, the Tokyo-born gave the first blush he had given in years and ducked his head down in embarrassment.  
  
Strangely, it never once occurred to him that he should fear the other boy. "I just like the way you walk", he said lamely.  
  
"Oh?", the boy's eyes danced in the dim light. With a start Kaga realized that the lamp was not a lamp - it had been a tray of candles arranged on an altar. "I was not aware either that my walk is particularly elegant. Thank you. I daresay you get enough of short-skirted girls throwing their hips from side to side in Tokyo? Or maybe you don't tire of those?" He gave another golden laugh, and when he stopped Kaga realized that he had been staring again.  
  
"Isumi. The name is Isumi", the boy said, giving no indication of ever having a last name. Ceremoniously he took Kaga's hand, held it in his for a moment, and then returned it to his lap. Kaga felt it hard to look into those eyes - he could read from his own instincts that this boy, Isumi, was not all that he seemed. There seemed to be something *else* about the way he moved and the sound of his voice - it seemed laced with spells of trust and loyalty. And yet he felt that Isumi would not break any promises. It was strange the way just the way that Isumi looked could send him into a fit of tongue-tied bashfulness. It wasn't that Isumi was particularly attractive to him - sure, he WAS beautiful, but he wasn't attracted THAT WAY. It was just the grace that the other boy used seemed so flowing, so completely controlled and so natural that he felt the role of being the scruffy, coarse little city boy become him immediately.  
  
He jumped when the door slammed open against the wall. Another boy was there, this one looking sharp in contrast to Isumi's almost boyish- roundness of face and gesture. Immediately Kaga realized that they were probably around the same age - older than he was, certainly. Whereas Isumi seemed to be comfortably clad, everything about the newer boy was crisper, edgier as if he didn't want a single speck of dust on him. Already from first glance he seemed immaculate, made of stone more than my hand was made of lead. His voice completely matched with his clothes. "Flirting again, Isumi?", his voice asked cynically. "Already can't keep your hands off of our little guest, now, can we?"  
  
There was no anger in Isumi's face or any stiffening defensive in his stance, but his eyes burned as his voice, still perfectly controlled, gave an equally cutting reply. "I would have thought that was your range of work. I was not aware that there were two whore in the house, Ijima. I was only aware that you were one."  
  
The sharp boy - Ijima - seemed to take this as no personal insult, and yet his eyes flashed dangerously back at Isumi. I froze, not quite knowing what to say; though my tendencies leaned towards Isumi, I wanted to hear the rest of the argument sans interruption. "Awareness, awareness", the sharp boy iterated, "you always talk of your awareness. Sixth sense indeed! Ridiculous, the lot of it all, prophecy my foot. Or, rather, if you would prefer, you could deliver my prophecy to my ass instead."  
  
Now Isumi's eyes were burning like nothing Kaga had ever seen before. "Would it be that you were gone!", he said low and quietly. "You disgrace the very floorboards that the rest of us walk on!"  
  
The sarcastic smile was still there. With a flick, Ijima gestured a careless goodbye and then sauntered out. The door was still open, but then Isumi closed it, his breathing and the routine of his inhale/exhale calming him. His smile was rueful as he looked at Kaga again. "I apologize you had to see that. As you can tell, Ijima does not get along very well with me." He stared at Kaga perhaps a little longer, and instantly the delinquent felt very exposed. "Oh! I almost forgot this", Isumi reached into a drawer and drew out a folded bundle of colors.  
  
Kaga's eyes almost jumped out of their sockets. "The blanket!", he gasped, and took it quickly. The moment his hands felt the softness of the material, he felt soothed. If all else failed, he still had this, it seemed like his last lifeline. He didn't have to ask Isumi to know that they had probably found him with it when he had still been lying in the snow. "Thank you", he said quietly, and he meant it. He stopped for a moment at his own words - he had not said those two words in a very, very long time. No one had ever gained his trust so fast and so readily before.  
  
Isumi was studying the blanket carefully. "It looks of Ainu make", he said thoughtfully. Kaga almost answered an affirmative to that, but then stopped. If Isumi brought the blanket to a police station, then they would know that Kaga was being sheltered in his house! Quickly he murmured a reply of uncertainty, and then ducked his head back down when he realized that Isumi was watching him closely.  
  
"What do you know of the Ainu anyway?", Kaga asked, his mind instantly thinking of young, improbable Ainu historians who had a taste for staring at a prisoner for the entire hour trip to a freezing island. He wondered, also, if Touya and Shindou were still looking for him.  
  
The other boy cocked his head to the side as if mirroring his question. "I am of Ainu descent", he said at length, "and I have a brother born here in Hokkaido in one of the tribes. He has devoted his life to the study of Ainu culture and history. I am here in Hokkaido to do the same, to follow in his footsteps." He gave a small smile, as if he were thinking of good memories with his brother. "You may have heard of him before? His name is Touya Akira."  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Well, that sure took a long time to crank out! But I couldn't decide what I was going to do until today, but I'm rather pleased with the results. I will be writing more soon, after this week is out because I have a nasty essay due in a very nasty class. I hope that this throws a bit of a curveball at you! No, I don't know if the Japanese Modern Art Museum has the "Thinker" outside of it - I do know that the San Francisco one does, so I put a mentioning of it in there too. Okay, that's it for now  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	7. Lighting on Stage

Ch. 7: Lighting on Stage  
  
It was already midnight when he set out. He wasn't sure what the curfew was in Hokkaido, in that little town that had no name, but he was sure it was probably over already. None of the buildings had lights in them except for the back window of the police station, just beside the students dorms. There had been five other boys, including Isumi, in the dorm that they shared rent for. They mentioned the owner as Ijima's rich and wrinkly grandfather who Kaga had never seen, but certainly heard an earful of; kind, but presumably very ugly. At the thought of ugliness, he grimaced. It wasn't that he particularly hated ugly people or anything. It was just that they were unattractive.  
  
There was no sound, no wind. The faint trickle of water across the roof and the eaves that dripped was close to silent. The wooden house where he had lived for one week, cooped up in close quarters with the other boys, stared out balefully at him with hollowed windows. The door was held half-shadow, the moonlight held the dorm in sharp regard, all angles as if to tell him not to return. He wouldn't return, after all; he'd now permanently stepped outside of all the boundaries where the other boys couldn't go. Feeling very much like a fugitive, he turned away again to face the road.  
  
His one usable hand drifted to the map of Hokkaido jammed into his right pocket, and then to the sheathed kitchen knife on his belt. He felt like a petty thief; everything on him was stolen, even the clothes. Everything except for the blanket, which he wrapped around him like a toga, and its warmth gave him no solace. He couldn't but think, against his will, that he was somehow leaving something very important behind, and that thought nagged at him constantly. But what could he have forgotten? And perhaps, more importantly, why was he feeling sad?  
  
The lead right hand gave a sharp jerk at that. Isumi's face floated up from the recesses of his mind and scrutinized him closely before giving a soft smile. He had not felt sad in many years, not since he realized in second grade that his father probably wasn't acting like most of the other kids' dads and probably didn't love him. That thought gave him a spark of anger and it smoldered in him like an unwrapped wound. He would save that anger until he could retaliate against that bastard someday. But all still, he realized that he didn't like that anger. It made him do things that probably Isumi wouldn't have done with a rational mind. He could recognize that Isumi probably said much less than he saw. He was smart enough to recognize thought in another.  
  
The road he followed ran towards the sea. It became cold then, and soon his ears probably wouldn't have been able to hear a foghorn from five feet away from all the wind noise. The moon half-covered around two o'clock, or so he thought; it had been a long time since Boy Scouts. There wasn't much to see except for dark, fierce sea and the occasional white breaking of waves across the cliffs. It gave Kaga a sort of stunned fascination, as if it was some sort of climax in a soap opera on television. The road wound up to the top of a cliff before it dropped down into the forest. At the top of the cliff he stopped and looked down. He watched as a wave lunged up towards him as if it attempted to swallow him, a belligerent leviathan sent by God to eliminate all sinners.  
  
He wondered what would happen if he actually jumped. Certainly, he would have liked to see the look on his dad's face when he came back reportedly dead from suicide - he liked that idea of revenge, twisted as it was. He hoped that it would be enough to put his father into jail for abuse, assault, or battery; certainly the bastard had done all of the above. Anger swelled in him, a dark emotion, and he glanced down at his right hand, the useless one, watching the moonlight glint sickly off of it. If he jumped, there was one less scrappy, hell-I-don't-care city boy who didn't belong in Buddhist tranquility. It wouldn't make a difference to the rest of the world.  
  
So why didn't he jump? It was easy. The only thing was that once he jumped there would be no turning back. He couldn't rewind up to the cliff. That was part of the fear.  
  
This was his life that he was considering! It was important, wasn't it? The cost of his life was the same as the cost of every life; if he died, he'd still get accepted into eternity like everyone else who had died and would die. Selfishly he thought of how it would look to all those other people, especially that Kimihiro that he'd beat up. That would have answered that weakling's prayers, wouldn't it? At most, maybe it would make the backpage of the obituaries - he would have liked to be remembered as some kind of martyr, but there wasn't any chance of that. He almost liked being evil at times, he could fool himself into liking that sort of power that he had over other people. It was starting to show, though, that humans probably weren't made to have that in mind. He was starting to feel other things, things that weren't angry anymore; and perhaps that was his biggest incentive to jump.  
  
He was insecure. He could learn to adapt to that kind of life with roller-coaster emotions like the rest of the populace of the world. But right now he was scared, and he couldn't fool himself out of it. It scared him that something could change him from the way that he was now, change him from the anger that had sustained him from the very beginning. The cliff was looking very welcoming from that surge of confusion; and at the same time, it was very frightening.  
  
After a moment, he turned around and went back up to the student dorm, all the while berating himself for being so weak that he couldn't even jump off a cliff to his death - he wasn't afraid of anything, wasn't he? It would have been better to jump off the cliff, no one cared anyway. For a moment Isumi came up in his mind, but he squashed it. Isumi probably was just being nice. From what he could tell, Isumi would probably betray him the moment he found out he was a juvenile delinquent and send him straight to the police, telling him that that it was probably "the best thing to do".  
  
Finally, it was almost dawn when he reached the dorms again, right next to the police station that he so feared. Things went in his head - maybe it would be right to turn himself in, maybe it would be right just to tell Isumi that he was a fugitive from Tokyo that was running from the law. But somehow he thought Isumi's views of him wouldn't have changed. The brother of Touya Akira understood what people were, and so he felt, even if it was just wishful thinking, that Isumi wouldn't do anything. At the same time, he wasn't a genius at reading people like Isumi was, so he couldn't be sure either. It all came down to Isumi, in the end, what he would do, because now that he'd left he'd have to explain to the rest of them just what he had attempted to do.  
  
Unsurprisingly, the house was still asleep when he opened up the back door with the spare key in the kitchen. As he tiptoed up the stairs after returning all of the 'stolen' goods away, he realized that the door to Isumi's room was half-open, and that warm lamplight was spilling into the hallway. Clutching the blanket as tight as he could, he entered slowly, feeling the weight of Isumi's gaze on him. Half-formed phrases went through his mind: should he greet, or should he confess? Did Isumi already know?  
  
The clear gaze stared up at him. "You came back", Isumi stated softly.  
  
"Yes", he answered uncomfortably.  
  
For the first time, Isumi seemed almost troubled by this. "And why did you come back? You could have gone, been out of here. My brother is searching for a juvenile delinquent who has escaped from an island around here; I have had reason to believe that you are none other than that person. I covered up for you.but I believed that it wouldn't have been discovered just who was covering for you. I also saw that it would not be sufficient reasoning for my act of kindness to keep you here, cooped up in a student dorm, for as long as that police station stands beside this wooden house." He looked down to the tray of candles, and lit the few that he had neglected. "I expected you to be gone the first night.and yet you stayed for a week. I suppose that was more than I could have asked for.all the same it makes me wonder, why did you wait?"  
  
There was no anger in Kaga - it was as if the sea winds had somehow blown all of that away, along with all of his strength to resist. He could only answer in truth; he could only reply to Isumi like a child would, after being found out about some small disobedience. He'd never felt the sting of patronizing like this before. "I - I don't know why I stayed. I think it was because of the others, though - the other boys, like you." He found himself fumbling and strained to keep concentration under Isumi's knowing gaze. He looked back up to meet that understanding, and found his eyes filling with - tears? When was the last time he'd cried? - and a wrenching sorrow that was starting to break in him.  
  
He steeled himself and sat down. "My father beat me. I stole and beat up a kid on the street and was sentenced to one year of isolation instead of going to jail for three years. I got off the island and came here, and I'm still trying to avoid getting caught", I said this all in one breath. "Tell me what to do now."  
  
His eyes fluttered. "You tried to kill yourself today." The sun was rising at the window just beyond him. "I tried to, as well, three years ago. My brother saved me and locked me in my room for an entire year - he was paranoid that I would do something to kill myself again. He took precaution to keep everything from forks, hammers and glass away from me. My door had five locks. My window was barred. I was virtually a prisoner in my own house and in my own room. I wasn't allowed to go out, not even for dinner. I didn't have any friends."  
  
"But I learned something. I learned restraint. I didn't fling myself passionately at everything anymore - I thought things out and deliberated things before I did them. Constraint is the key thing here, and you're starting to learn what it is." I looked at him speechlessly; I'd guessed such an event in his past but hadn't bothered to look into it. "That moment before you decide to jump - that's the one pure moment. You can think of only one thing then, and that is despair." I nodded, but he didn't speak again.  
  
"Then. . .why do you think I didn't jump?"  
  
He gave a half-smile at that. "I'm not you. You should know that, not me."  
  
"So I'm dumb." For a moment I was reminded of Shindou. "Explain it to me."  
  
"The worth of all life in the world is the same - do you see that? One person dying won't make a difference if another person dies. The worth of a soul, of the life that's inside of a body, the thing that doesn't die but gives you entrance into eternity, that is of the same worth in everyone. The QUALITY of how a person lives their life is different - but the value of individual lives are the same. Do you understand?" I nodded. "But now that you haven't dropped off the cliff and decided that the value of your life still means you have more to live for, you need to decide what you're GOING to live for. Now it is the QUALITY of your life that you're questioning. What do you want to do?"  
  
I thought a little before answering. "Like - like you guys", I mumbled lamely. "How you can be so happy with little things and not really care about anything in the world because you don't have to - how can you balance the larger world around you and then the personal lives that you have? I think - I think my balance in that instance has been off-kilter, I think I've been thinking too selfishly." The memory of my old life burned with anger when I said that, but I meant what I was saying, every bit. "How do you - live? The way that people are supposed to live. The way you live, it's like you care about your life but you care more for other people's lives. You're even nice to Ijima. How can you do that?"  
  
Now Isumi smiled a little. "What were you accustomed to doing with your enemies?"  
  
I shrugged, even though I was burning with something like shame inside. "Punched them, I guess."  
  
Soft laughter. "Then you've been taking the easy way out of life so far. There are two kinds of living, I guess, one is the way you're living now - you live for the moment, and then there's me when I live to change the future of myself and of others by researching the age-old culture of Hokkaido. I have a push, a reason; you still need to find yours. There must be something other than punching than gives you inspiration and excitement."  
  
My mind zipped back to the ghost village that had been abandoned, to the corpse that reached out the hand and made my right hand lead and unmovable. How the snowflakes had drifted slowly; how I had become entranced with the way they moved and the slow piling of white on the banks and around the trees. The feeling that I had been connected to something larger, where I could feel the pain of Mother Nature's roots, feel the groan of the world under all the feet of the humans and the weight of all the machinery - I had belonged to something larger in that moment. Isumi was still looking at me when I gathered up the blanket and slipped out the door without giving him an answer.  
  
The window was open when I stepped inside, and it was cold. All at once I looked down at my hand, the lead one, and dashed back down the stairs. Isumi looked up calmly at me again. "My hand", I gasped from the mad juggernauting down the stairs, "can you -?"  
  
"Yes, I can see that its lead. Is there anything else you need?"  
  
He used his left hand to pick up his right and wave it around madly in the air for a moment to reiterate his point. "But it's weird, strange - aren't you scared of it or something?"  
  
Isumi snapped the book shut with a loud snap, almost angrily. The candles, burning low, still reflected more than the sliver of sun that had appeared over the treetops. "No, Kaga, I am not afraid of you. You can't hurt me here, even though you think you have power. You said that you've hurt people before, because your father beat you. I believe you on that point - but I am astonished that you did nothing to change your behavior -", Kaga opened his mouth to protest loudly and harshly but Isumi cut him off, "and I understand that you probably thought you were doing the right thing, you didn't know any better. I refuse to believe, though, you cannot change - you saw how people are supposed to treat people in the past week, so follow that. You must come to terms with the fact that having NO power over NO people is better than having fear hanging over other peoples heads. People will take you the wrong way, and they'll escape your presence as soon as they can. You must learn to like living instead of liking anger, which gave you a lot of your threats and your supposed power over people. Your father is wrong, so don't follow his example." Then he opened his book again.  
  
Kaga licked his lips at the long speech and asked confusedly, "But what I mean is, how should I get rid of the hand? It's like its useless - I want my old hand back."  
  
Isumi gave a soft laugh. "No, no, Kaga, it's not poisoned at all. Just learn how to use it, and after that everything will be easy."  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \  
  
Author's note:  
  
Well, sorry for the long update. Had stuffs to do. I hope to write a bit of Colors after this, but I want to maybe fit a songfic in somewhere once I find something worthwhile. Okay, that's all.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


	8. Heavy

Ch. 7: Heavy  
  
It was quiet when he woke again, in the cold attic room that he had been generously given. Below him, he could feel the other five boys stirring from sleep - murmurs and cooking sounds reached under the door along with the tantalizing aromas of breakfast that Isumi was preparing. His eyes remained closed, but he could see the room with its wooden beams and mysteriously dark corners, the tatami dead-center and then the little incense altar in the corner. The window would be a thick gray paste, like the taro in the bread that cost a lot back in Tokyo, creamy and somehow sticky as well. And when he opened his eyes, the first thing he would feel would be like a rushing of air, like as if he were flying on a jetstream without a plane under him.  
  
He opened his eyes. And jerked straight up.  
  
The beams above him were on fire.  
  
He could feel his useless right arm tingling with warmth, sucking in the warmth from the flames around it. He used my other hand to use it to open the door, and felt absolutely no pain from the hot door. Covering his mouth and squinting his eyes, he made it down the stairs slowly, breaking one in the process. On the second floor he peered into Isumi's room, and saw that it had probably been his candles that started the fire. Everything was burning merrily already. He hacked under the onslaught of smoke, and then made his way to ground floor.  
  
The breakfast, ironically, was still cooking. A western style breakfast had been cooked, with a small omelet and toast with a square of butter - on impulse, he grabbed the toast and scarfed it down quickly. As soon as he was finished a burning log almost fell on him. Berating myself for putting down wrong priorities, he draped a blanket in the parlor over himself and then rushed outside in someone else's shoes. There had evidently been snow last night; the entire ground was sparkling in the winter sun, humorlessly. And there was no one else outside.  
  
For a moment he struggled with something inside of him, for some sort of a name that he did not know - like a curtain or shutters that suddenly blocked everything else from his memory. A face, a vision, that he struggled to recall along with the name that went along with it. Snatches of something caught fleetingly at the edges of his eyes, an illusion that danced out of his reach. A tray of candles - a house, burning, this house in front of him - hands, graceful and femininely shaped even though he could somehow identify the owner was male - and then words, something about wanting to die and how prisons confined. He fought with it inside of his own mind, trying to remember. . .what was he trying to remember? A person, someone who completely understood -  
  
Isumi? The name somehow sounded familiar, but it was fast becoming foreign to him.  
  
The burning building arched high above him, and his right arm tingled. He looked down to the sight of his arm, wrapped in lead, melting in the heat, and somehow he felt no fear at all. Then the house groaned with weakening limbs, and when it finally crashed and the sparks and splinters flew out at his face, he felt them pass through him and knew no more.  
  
* * *  
  
There was a voice, calling his name, and when he woke up he almost imagined wooden beams and a room with an altar in the corner, but those faded the moment he opened his eyes. Touya was there, standing over him, his face concerned for once. He sat up, groggily, and unconsciously wrapped the blanket tighter around his form. On sudden impulse he looked down at his right hand - and it was a hand, albeit a rather cold hand, that he could move when he wanted to. For a moment confusion surfaced along with a multitude of snatches of feeling, light, sound, and touch. He looked up swiftly at the crouched form of Touya beside him, supporting his back, and said quite clearly, "Isumi."  
  
If Touya's face could have become any more surprised, he would have liked to see it. The Ainu researcher looked as to be rewinding memory back to some other time, but then they cleared and said breathlessly, "How - how do you know about that?"  
  
Kaga swallowed and continued. "You had a brother, I met him. His name is Isumi, and he's working to become an Ainu researcher like you. Am I wrong?" Memory of the fire returned to him, and he clutched at Touya's arm. "The fire! What about the fire? Did he get out? The other boys, they didn't. . .die, did they?"  
  
Touya was looking at him strangely, shaking his head. "I don't know what you're talking about", the researcher said finally. "Isumi died five years ago in a fire in a little town along with four other boys. I believe that is what you're talking about, but certainly I don't think you've ever met him. It would have been impossible." Kaga saw a sort of desperate hope grow and die in Touya's eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"But he was there! I met him!"  
  
The researcher stood, suddenly looking stern. "I don't know what you're talking about", he said sternly to him, "but you'd better not put up any trouble. It's been six months that Shindou and I have been out for you, so you'd better not put up a fight now." But almost as if an afterthought, he took the blanket and arranged it carefully around Kaga's shoulders. "Come along now."  
  
Kaga stood still for a moment. He looked down at the blanket, at his T-shirt and pants, and felt that he didn't really belong in the snow at all. But it had only been two weeks! What was this about "six months" and "five years"? And if he had survived on Hokkaido for six months, then how could he have survived so long without memory of it? Almost as an afterthought, he looked down at his right hand - not lead, anymore. But it felt just as heavy.  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
FINALLY FINISHED!!!! Okay, I don't know if you want me to continue this to encompass what happens to Tsutui as well. . . tell me, willya? But as of now if no one tells me what they want, this is the end of the story. Signing out!  
  
Andrea Weiling 


End file.
